this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we have an important very special show for you. an hour with the president of the united states barack obama. we met in new delhi where he was on a state visit and we had a frank, wide-ranging conversation. from islamic terrorism. are we in a war with radical islam? to drones on the white house lawn. from nuclear talks with iran. >> for us to undermine diplomacy is a mistake. to prime minister's in etten en

netanyahu's end run around the white house. from president obama's inkreeg is increasing rapport with authoritarian regimes. from russia's failing economyincreasing rapport with authoritarian regimes. from russia's failing economy to russia's successful efforts to destabilize ukraine. >> there is no formula in which this ends up being good for russia. >> it is an interview you don't want to miss. >> there are costs to the decisions that we make. but first, here's my take. president obama's trip this week to india was strategically important, symbolically resonant and deftly executed. but it coincided with a snowstorm in some northeastern states so it struggled to get air time and ink in the united states. in india, on the other hand newspapers devoted pages to the visit every day an television coverage was wall to wall. it even got the attention of the chinese government which denounced the new friendship.

obama's trip highlights an opportunity and a problem. foreign policy consists of two elements. negative and positive. negative foreign policy is about preventing bad things from happening, confronting dangers and dealing with bad guys. it is the stuff that makes the front page and the evening broadcast. positive foreign policy is focused on the up side. it is about building new relationships, expanding markets and opportunities, strengthening alliances and values. obama's india trip was a perfect example of positive foreign policy. the united states has been forging new ties to india since the clinton administration but president obama's decision to attend india's republic day marked a tipping point. india has gone from being a country 30 years ago that was reflexively anti-american to one that is increasingly pro-american. indian society has long been

attracted to america, but in recent years the indian government has been moving away from its encrusted ideology of non-alignment to something far more practical. india's energetic new prime minister has pushed his government to an unambiguously pro-american direction. bringing india in closer to the united states should have broad benefits for washington and the world. with over 1.2 billion people india is likely to become the next global goliath. while it will probably never as fast as china because of its size even 7% growth say over the next two decades would give it a loud voice in the world's councils of power. india is the most significant example of the benefits of positive foreign policy but there are other important ones as well. the most remarkable opportunity presents itself in mexico. 30 years ago mexico was defined

by its anti-americanism. today it is a different country. its economy is closely linked to its that into the north. its politicians regard america as their natural partner and the culture has become americanized in so many respects. the up sides of success are significant. if the united states can partner with india, along with indonesia and japan, it is far more likely that asla and the world will be characterized by free trade, multi-lateralism and rules-based international systems. a deeper set of ties between the u.s. mexico and canada could create a north american economic and political union of sorts that would be morp interconnecte interconnected vibrant and powerful than any regional bloc in the world. but all of this takes time and effort pushing these countries to reform is hard work. showing up remains vital especially in asia. the constant drum beat to deal with the prices are dujour fails

to recognize opportunity costs. every day spent on one more band of thugs in the middle east is a day that cannot be spent on india or mexico. asia latin america and africa are all moving in the right direction, but these trends are not automatic or self-sustaining. they require washington to be engaged and assertive, and also need a political and media climate in which the urgent does not always trump the important. for more go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column this week. let's get started with my interview with president obama. mr. president, honored to have you. >> good to see you, fareed.

>> lippedcy lindsey graham says he's troubled that you won't use the term "war" with radical islam. >> i think that the way to understand this is there is and element growing out of muslim communities in certain parts of the world that have perverted the religion have embraced a annihilistic violent, almost medieval interpretation of islam. and they're doing damage in a lot of countries around the world. but it is absolutely true that i reject a notion that somehow that kreecreates a religious war because the overwhelming majority of muslims reject that interpretation of islam. they don't even recognize it as

being islam. and i think that for us to be successful in fighting this scourge is very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9% of muslims who are looking for the same thing we're looking for -- order, peace, prosperity and so i don't quibble with labels. i think we all recognize that this is a particular problem that has roots in muslim communities and that the middle east and south asia are sort of ground zero for us needing to win back hearts and minds particularly when it comes to young people. but i think we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of muslims reject this ideology. >> others say that you down play the importance of terrorism.

you want to downgrade it as a threat to the united states. >> well look. i have to talk to the families of those who are killed by terrorists. i have to talk to the families of soldiers of ours who fought to make sure that al qaeda in the fatah couldn't carry out attacks against us again. so i'm pretty mindful of the terrible costs of terrorism around the world. what i do insist on is that we maintain a proper perspective and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by overinflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an

existential threat to the united states or the world order. the truth of the matter is they can do harm, but we have the capacity to control how we respond in ways that do not undercut what's the essence of who we are. that means that we don't torture, for example, and thereby undermine our values and credibility around the world. it means that we don't approach this with a strategy of sending out occupying armies and playing whack a mole wherever a terrorist group appears because that drains our economic strength and it puts enormous burdens on our military. what's required is a surgical precise response to a very specific problem. and if we do that effectively, then ultimately these terrorist organizations will be defeated because they don't have a vision that appeals to ordinary people.

it really is as it has been described in some cases, a death cult or an entirely backward looking fantasy that can't function in the world. when you look at isil it has no governing strategy. it can talk about setting up a new caliphate, but nobody is under any illusions that they can actually in a sustained way feed people or educate people or organize a society that would work. and so we can't giver them the victory of overinflating what they do and we can't make the mistake of being reactive to them. we have to have a very precise strategy in terms of how to defeat them. >> americans have been very interested to hear about this drone that landed in the white house, your backyard where you and your family lives. are you confident that you understand how you would prevent the next one from being armed? >> well this is a broader problem. i'll leave the secret service to talk about this particular

event. but i've actually asked the faa and a number of agencies to examine how are we managing this new technology. because the drone that landed at the white house you buy at radio shack. you know that there are companies that amazon talking about using small drones to deliver packages. there are incredibly useful functions that these drones can play in terms of farmers who are managing crops and conservationists who want to take stock of wildlife. so there are a whole range of things we can do with it. but we don't really have any kind of regulatory structure at all for it so i have's signed

it to some of the relevant agencies to start talking to stakeholders and figure out how we're going to put an architecture in place that makes sure that these things aren't dangerous and that they're not violating people's privacy and in some ways fareed this is similar to what's happened in cyberspace. these technologies that we're developing have the capacity to empower individuals in ways that we couldn't even imagine 10 15 years ago. but we don't yet have the legal structures and the architecture both globally and within individual countries, to manage them the way that we need to. part of my job over the past several years and over the next couple of years that i'm still in office is seeing if we can start providing some sort of framework that ensures that we get the good and minimize the

bad. next on "gps," the president on bebe and boehner after the speaker invited the prime minister to address the u.s. congress. president obama has said he won't meet with net nanyahu when he comes in march. >> i think that's inappropriate. >> he'll explain when we come back. and then we'll talk about more thorn in president obama's side. russian president putin. are we on the road to war between the russia and the west. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. it's tough, but i've managed. but managing my symptoms was all i was doing. so when i finally told my doctor he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief.

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the relationship between president obama and israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu can be described as tense, at best. that was ratcheted up even more when it was announced last week that the speaker of the house, john boehner, had invited the prime minister to speak directly to congress about a potential iran nuclear deal. obama's administration has been working feverishly to strike a deal with iran ever since november 2013 when such an accord first seemed possible. so what was the president's reaction to the prime minister's plans? listen in. >> last week it was announced that israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu was going to come to washington and do a joint session of congress at the

invitation of the republican speaker of the house. many people are saying this is a rebuttal of your arguments about negotiations with iran of a possible deal with iran. do you think it is appropriate for him to come in this manner at this time to washington? >> well i'll let mr. boehner answer that and mr. netanyahu. i speak with prime minister netanyahu all the time. we're declining to meet with him, i'm declining to meet with him simply because our general policy is we don't meet with any world leader two weeks before their election. i think that's inappropriate. that's true with some of our closest allies. david cameron who has got an election coming up recently came to visit because we insisted that if he wants to come and it was a very important meeting, he needs to be far away enough from the election that doesn't look like in some ways we're meddling or putting our thumbs on the scale. to the broader issue, fareed i don't think there's been any

rebuttal of my argument. i haven't heard a persuasive rebuttal of my argument that we crafted very effective sanctions against iran specifically to bring them to the negotiations table to see if we could resolve the iranian nuclear issue through diplomatic means. by all accounts including the accounts of israeli intelligence iran has abided by the terms of this interim agreement. they have not advanced their nuclear program. they have actually rolled back their stockpiles of piely lyhighly enriched uranium. so we have lost nothing during this period of negotiations. iran's program has not advanced and we have the chance of providing a mechanism where we can verify that iran doesn't have nuclear weapon and iran has the ability over time to re-enter the community of

nations as a responsible player. now i don't know that we're going to be able to get that done. but my argument is for the united states congress to insist on imposing new sanctions that all our partners as well as the iranians can interpret as a violation of the interim agreement. for us to undermine diplomacy at this critical time for no good reason is a mistake. and that what we need to do is to finish up this round of negotiations put the pressure on iran to say yes to what the international community is calling for and what's been remarkable is the unity we've been able to maintain in the p5 plus one, even with russia given all the strains that we have with them, china chinawhich has obviously has a great hunger for

oil. if we don't get a deal make sure it the the iranians' fault because they couldn't say yes to a reasonable deal. so i haven't heard a good counterargument yet. i will veto legislation if it comes up that imposes additional sanctions, and, by the way, what i've said to members of congress and what i've said to the israelis is the day after iran walks away from a reasonable deal the easiest thing for me to do in congress is pass additional sanctions against iran. it would take about two days for me to be able to assign a bill like that. so we have the ability to exert additional pressure but it is important for us to show that we've exhausted every possible avenue of diplomatic resolution. >> but if you listen to what people are saying in congress about the prospective deal -- i think everyone knows where it was, somewhere in the range of 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges. it seems almost any deal you'll bring to this republican senate

they're not going to go for. doesn't it doom those negotiationses? >> i think it is important for us to actually have a deal in place, then make an arguement for what the deal is. i've said before that we will take no deal over a bad deal. but if i can prove that the deal we've put in place assures us through indisputable verification mechanisms that iran cannot achieve breakout capacity if i have's got a bunch of scientists and nuclear experts saying. assures us that iran is not on the brink of being a nuclear weapons power, then that's a public debate we should have. and i will then ask every member of congress to ask why would we reject that deal and prefer a potential military option that would be less effective in

constraining iran's nuclear program and would have extraordinary ramifications at a time when we've already got too many conflicts in the middle east? i'm pretty confident i can win that argument. next on "gps," president obama made a special trip this week to meet with the new king of saudi arabia and his administration continues to support general al ceci in egypt. is the united states back to getting in bed with authoritarian regimes? i'll ask president obama that when we come back. 7 creeping up on you... fight back with relief so smooth... ...it's fast. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue ...and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum, tum tum tum...♪ smoothies! only from tums. push your enterprise and you can move the world. ♪ ♪ but to get from the old way to the new you'll need the right it infrastructure.

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the united states must fight terrorists but in doing so does it have to ally with dictatorships and absolute monarchies? i asked president obama to explain what looked like a shift in his views and his policy. in is 2011 during the arab spring you said that authoritarian regimes offered the illusion of stability but they actually produce a lot of problems in fact breed

terrorists. now secretary of state kerry praises general el sisi of egypt, you affirmed your relationship with saudi arabia. absolute monarchies in the middle east. is the theory of authoritarian stability back? >> no i don't think so. i think that if you look at all my statements what i've always said is that in applying u.s. foreign policy why can never operate as if the world as it is doesn't exist. we've got friends and allies who help us with strategic interests who also engage in practices that don't meet our test of human rights or democracy. and what we can do is to encourage them to move in a new direction but oftentimes we're

going to have to make decisions based on the here and now and our strategic interests. what i continue to believe is that an authoritarian model in this day and age is going to be less and less sustainable. i think we've seen evidence of that around the world. part of it is just the flow of information. authoritarianism to some degree depends on the ignorance of people and the internet and social media means people have access to information. authoritarian regimes rely to a large extent on tamping down people's expectations. people's expectations are constantly rising today, especially among young people. so a government model that does not rely ultimately on a legitimacy and consent but rather relies on force

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next month will mark a year since russia annexed crimea. moscow continues to. send arms supplies and, by some accounts, troops into eastern ukraine. i asked president obama how he felt the situation would ever get resolved. would it be fair to say that with regard to russia your policy has been pretty effective in imposing real costs on the russian economy but it has not

deterred vladimir putin from creating instability in ukraine, conflict seems to have even escalated in the last few weeks. >> i think that's entirely fair. and i think that is a testament to the bad decisions that mr. putin is making on behalf of his country. you know you think about where we've been in terms of u.s.-russian relations. when i came in to office we talked about reset. i established i think an effective working relationship with mr. medvedev. as a consequence, russia's economy was growing. they had the opportunity to begin diversifying their economy. their relations across europe and around the world were sound. they jound theined the wto with assistance from us. and since mr. putin made this decision around crimea, and ukraine, not because of some

grand strategy but essentially because he was caught off balance by the protests then yanukovych fleeing after we'd brokered a deal since that time this improvisation that he's been doing has gotten him deeper and deeper into a situation that is a violation of international law, that violates the integrity -- territorial integrity and sovereignty of ukraine, has isolated russia diplomatically, has made europe wary of doing business with russia, has allowed the imposition of sanctions that are crippling russia's economy at a time when their oil revenues are dropping. there's no formula in which this ends up being good for russia. the annexation of crimea is a cost not a benefit, to russia.

the days in which conquests of land somehow was a formula for great nation status is over. the power of countries today is measured by your knowledge, your skills, your ability to export goods to invent new products and new services your influence and none of those things are provided by his strategy. now but what is absolutely true is that if you have a leader who continually drives past the offrampsoff off-ramps that we've provided, given the size of the russian military and given that ukraine is not a country, there are clear limits in terms of what we would do militarily, mr. putin has mott been stopped so far. to those who would suggest that we need to do more what i've

said to them is that we can exact higher and higher cost, and that's exactly what we're doing and we can bring diplomatic pressure to bare. i don't think it would be wise or the united states or the world to see an actual military conflict between the united states an russia. what we are doing is reinforcing those border states who are members of nato and making very clear that that line is one that cannot be crossed because we would have to take military action to protect our allies. that's part of what article 5 is all about. >> but have you seen no indication that putin is ready for a deal in recent months weeks. >> you know so far what we've seen is a lot of talk in public with chancellor merkel and president hollande and ourselves in which he will say one thing

but his actions tell another tale. what we've consistently seen is that the separatists are russian finance russian trained, their strategy comes from russia. russian troops support them. and so we have not yet seen a recognition on the part of the kremlin that it is in russia's interests to resolve this issue over the long term. so in addition to continuing to exact costs on russia one of the most important things we can do is to continue to support the ukrainian economy. and the reform efforts that are coming out of kiev. and to their credit president porechenko and prime minister yasen yuck have instituted significant reforms that are making a difference if given a chance. so we're going to keep on these

dual tracks putting more pressure on russia bolstering ukraine delivering a message to mr. putin that these off-ramps and diplomatic resolutions remain available. i'm not wildly optimistic at this point that his orientation changes. partly because the one thing that's been very successful for mr. putin is his politics. i think he's been able to create, in part because of state sponsored media and russian tv and all the meg nymphs he has to quell dissent inside his country and tapping into sort of the strong nationalism that exists inside of russia. what he has been able to do is to keep his poll numbers up. and in fact a lot of his turn away from re-engagement with the west was when he decided to start running for re-election

and his popularity wasn't as high as he was accustomed to. you'll recall there were protests in moscow that started numbering in the thousands and you started then seeing a ramp-up of this anti-western anti-u.s. rhetoric which is out of the old soviet playbook. so he's looking backwards, not forwards. perhaps over time he changes his mind. in the meantime we just have to make sure that we're firm in protecting our allies and supporting the principles that have maintained peace in europe for the entire post-war period. when we come back more of my interview with president obama. i've so far asked him to talk about boehner, yetten yahoo, putin and modi. next i'll ask him about a man he should know pretty well -- himself. how does he see his own presidency. when we come back.

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in a recent issue of "new york" magazine that asked how history would judge barack obama the scholar charles kesler invoekedked a famous test. i put the test directly to president obama. claire booth once wrote that great men get one line. history has only time enough for one line for them and it is usually a line with an active verb. lincoln freed the slaves. reagan won the cold war. what do you this inkynk your line will be? >> oh, i've gotten this question, i'm going to let someone else answer that question. someone more articulate and pitthypit pithy than i am. >> what are you most proud of? >> i'm proud of saving the american economy. we still have a long way to go.

especially what we did was stabilize it lay a new foundation to move forward. as i said in the state of the union address, that gives us now the capacity to tackle what was an i think we have moved the trend lines in the right direction, but we still got a long way to go on that. internationally, i'm proud of the fact that we have responsibly ended two wars. people say well you're back in iraq. but we're not back in iraq with an occupying army we're back with a coalition of 60 countries that are working to stabilize the situation. we don't have 180,000 the troops

that are deployed in those two countries and i think what we have also done is reflected the best values of america. and trying to nurture this democratic movement inside of burma and ending what i believe had become a counter productive policy in cuba and strengthening ing alliances with places like india. i think our future prosperity and security are how are we going with 1.2 billion aspiring indian who is share democracy with us how are we doing in latin america with countries that are generally more

favorably disposed to the united states than they have been in a long time because of the actions we have taken. there are big chunks of the world, the asia pacific region where rebalancing has led to not only concrete -- but has also sent a year message to china that we want to be their partner, but they have to be part of a rural system. so you know one of the things that i have learned in this job over the last six years is that sometimes progress is incremental. but when i look at overall, the steps that we have taken, i believe they're the right ones. and i am very confident that america is stronger, more

prosperous safer, and more influential today than it was when i i took office. up next the president has a recommendation for you and for me, what is it? when we come back. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue ...and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum, tum tum tum...♪ smoothies! only from tums. push your enterprise and you can move the world. ♪ ♪ but to get from the old way to the new you'll need the right it infrastructure. from a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile, borderless and secure. hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. and stay ready for everything that is still to come.

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s

. we usually end the show mr. president, with a book of the week, i recommend a book to the viewers. i thought i would hand it over to you. what book have you read in recent months? >> over vacation i read a book

of short stories by phil declay called redeployment. and it's a quick but powerful and, for me painful set of stories about the experience of ordinary soldiers in iraq. and i think it's a reminder particularly important for a commander in chief that the antiseptic plans and decisions and strategies and opining pundits that take place in washington, you know is very different from war and conflict as it's experienced by people on the ground. and, you know part of the reason that i am deliberate about decision making when it comes to foreign policy and part

soft reason i do think it's important to aim before you shoot is because i have met enough young men in walter reed and talked to enough families that have list loved ones to remember that there are the costs to the decisions we make sometime wes have to make them but they're real and they're serious. and, you know we can't play political games and we can't engage in bluster or reaction or, you know, try to beat our chests when we make these decisions. if we're going to deploy folks to war, it better for a darn good reason and we better have a very clear objective that is worthy of the sacrifices that these folks make. >> mr. president, pleasure to

have you. >> great to be with you. >> and that is the end of our show for today, thanks for joining us to see my interview with president barack obama from new delhi. i will see you next. happening right now, in the newsroom another winter blast, 100 million people in the path of a nasty storm that will stretch from chicago to new york 18 states now under a winter watch or warning. plus --- >> we don't approach this with thisa strategy of playing whac-a-mole wherever a terrorist appears. >> president obama sits down with fareed zakaria for a one-on-one. we'll talk